


Professional Ascendants

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aftermath, Anxiety, Art, Bisexual Character, Coming Out, F/F, Family Dynamics, Footnotes, Getting Together, Lower Tadfield, Magic, Multi, Post-Canon, Prophecy, Queer awakening, Questioning, Relationship Negotiation, Road Trips, Self-Discovery, Siblings, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 21:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17352539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: The Apocalypse has been averted. Anathema Device has burned the Further Nice and Accurate Prophecies. Sarah Young barely noticed the whole thing.And that's just the beginning.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Petimetrek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petimetrek/gifts).



> This was written for the 2018 Good Omens Holiday Exchange, modded by Vulgarweed, irisbluefic, and Lunasong365. 
> 
> The prompt I chose to work with was one of Petimetrek's, and read:
> 
> "Anathema finally meets Sarah Young (Adam's old sister). It could go like this: -S: Hello, I'm Sarah, nice to meet you. -A: Hi Sarah, I'm gay" 
> 
> I took that and RAN.
> 
> (This fic was originally posted on Dreamwidth for the exchange. Minor edits have been made since then.)

The second most important fire in Anathema Device’s life took place on the day after the world failed to end*. Newt held her hand and she thought _good riddance_ as an entire unread book of prophecies went up in smoke. She was free of responsibility now, free of ancestors watching over her shoulder, free to do whatever she wanted.

[* The first was, of course, the fire that killed her greatest ancestor, Agnes Nutter, and blew up a small town.]

Not once did she look at the horizon.

At the time it had seemed appropriate, like a slightly anticlimactic but ultimately relieving end to a story that could have ended in apocalypse. But real life, unfortunately, tends to scoff at narrative conventions, and people’s lives keep going even after it seems all should have been neatly tied up and finished with an epilogue.

And so it was with Anathema. Life continued. The next morning, she woke up and made breakfast and tried to ignore the thump of delivered newspapers occurring sporadically from six-o-clock onwards, with the heaviest flow between seven and seven forty-five. Whatever happened at the airfield, and whether she remembered it or not, there were no prophecies to decipher. No signs to look for. No reason to spend all morning pouring through papers.

Newt ate breakfast and visibly jumped at every thump. _If he’s not going to bring them in, I’m not either,_ Anathema told herself, and returned to her toast.

 _And fhe who faw the ende of the ende muft reade the reft of the ftory fhe began,_ said a voice in her mind that sounded suspiciously like Agnes Nutter, or at least what Anathema had always imagined Agnes Nutter to sound like. Sometimes this voice had recited relevant prophecies at the appropriate moment. Other times it just provided strange interpretations of current events. Anathema sometimes fancied it _was_ Agnes, speaking from beyond the grave. She was certainly judgmental enough.

She and Newt cracked at the same time. “We ought to at least bring them inside,” she blurted, just as Newt exclaimed, “well they’re no good on the step, are they?”

Anathema smiled. Newt smiled back.

They ran for the door.

It takes a single person approximately three hours and ten minutes to sift through an entire day's worth of newspapers for unexplained phenomena. Two people going through a day's worth of newspapers together takes about two hours, and includes frequent pauses to remark things like: “oh this is strange,” or “does that look like an extra nipple to you?” or “I’ve never _seen_ such horrible hair!”

After a week of this, they’d got their time down to an hour and a half.

The problem was, neither she nor Newt had much to look for. "Signs of witchcraft," Newt said, but Anathema gestured to herself and the cottage to say _here we are, now what are you going to do about it?,_ and after that his determination was somewhat shaken. Anathema, for her part, had no obscure prophecies to check the phenomena against, and so they held little more significance than an opportunity to say "huh, that's weird" before moving on.

She almost cancelled half the subscriptions, but couldn’t quite bring herself to make the calls.

Anathema and Newt sat at the table of Jasmine cottage and stared at each other, and at the pile of newspapers, and at the extra minutes left on the clock. The years seemed to stretch ahead, each one a complete mystery. Decades, maybe, that Anathema had never expected to live.

Newt was getting restless, and spoke of going back to London to check on Shadwell. He hadn’t taken to Lower Tadfield, even with the optimal microclimate. He’d been suggesting that Anathema should go with him, but when she suggested that, “no, I don’t think so,” he hadn’t pushed it. He was asking himself the same thing Anathema was: how do you move on from saving the world?

Anathema did a lot of crosswords, and read, and couldn’t find a point in either. Here she was, the last descendant of Agnes Nutter, with a theodolite and a lifetime spent deciphering and absolutely no idea what to do with it all. Even so, it took her almost a week before she discovered the source of the problem.

She’d taken a pile of useless papers to the bins out back of the cottage, which she’d eventually haul to a recycling plant. On the way back, her toe caught on a bit of charred stick and it hit her, all at once.

 _Well fhite_ , she thought, in Agnes's voice. _Ye fouldn’t have burned that booke, Anathema._

* * *

Anathema was nothing if not resourceful, and immediately put her mind to the problem of getting the _Further Prophecies_ back. 

Someone had tried to wipe her memory of the almost-apocalypse, and they'd nearly done it, too. Maybe they would have succeeded if Anathema had not been so very determined to remember. As it was, her memories of the day were like dragonflies. Present, beautiful, and very very fast. If she grabbed for one at random, they would certainly dart out of her grasp. Luckily, Anathema had a good understanding of dragonflies and the materials— in the form of a deep understanding of the _Nice and Accurate Prophecies—_ to build a net.

Then she recruited Newt to check her, and the two sat in the sun-filled room of Jasmine cottage catching dragonflies.

They remembered that:

1\. Agnes had gotten them into the airfield, with the help of Anathema and a thick stick.

2\. Newt did not really work with computers, and had somehow managed to break all the airfield's technology just by thinking about fixing it. This had probably prevented nuclear war.

3\. There had been some motorcyclists that might have been* the four horsemen of the apocalypse, except one was woman-shaped.

[* There was minor controversy over the validity of this point.

"It would make sense if they were the horsemen," Anathema said. "Armageddon, you know."

"No it wouldn't," said Newt. "The physical embodiments of war and death and things like that don't make sense at all."]

4\. Newt's employer, Sargent Shadwell, had been there, along with his neighbor, Madame Tracy. Newt wasn't sure why or how. He'd associated the two so much with the inside of their apartment building that their presence in Lower Tadfield made even less sense than the presence of genuine representatives from Heaven and Hell.

5\. Which had also been there. Or at least a few of them. A supposed angel and demon had yelled at other, more powerful, supernatural beings. Anathema thought this was rather promising.

6\. The world had not ended.

7\. Someone had been at the center of it. The "he" Agnes had written about, the Antichrist, the powerful entity that had played with their memories to begin with, the person who had begun and ended the end of the world. This person's identity was especially hard to pin down. But, Anathema reasoned, you didn't have to remember something to puzzle it out. If you had a list of phenomena and an idea of who'd been at the airfield that day, it was possible to make an educated guess.

By late afternoon, Anathema was certain the someone was Adam Young.

* * *

Sarah Young had done nothing whatsoever to cause or avert the apocalypse. This was, in large part, because no one had told her the apocalypse was happening. 

Instead, she had spent most of the day in her room, listening to eco-goth bands on CD and painting a large canvas propped in the corner. If anyone had asked, she would have told them that she _had_ felt an oppressive and persistent foreboding all through the afternoon and evening, and then a remarkable sense of relief that lasted until Adam was dragged home from whatever trouble he’d gotten in. Then she would have asked what sort of a question the interviewer thought that was.

The foreboding manifested in her painting, a dark blue sky with a moon that had come out looking significantly more like a skull than she’d intended. In the darkest corner of the night, yellow eyes peered out of the shadows, watching, waiting. Sarah had finished it over the past week, and it sat, uncomfortably ominous, at the foot of her bed.

Sarah’s room was her sanctuary. She didn’t get on with her family. Her father was always complaining about how things were better in the old days, before Sarah had been born. Her mother was a quiet woman who had adored Sarah's art the whole time she was a child, but now got a pinched look and sighed a lot when Sarah talked about paining, and kept suggesting Sarah look into something more practical. They both hated her short haircut, and neither of them knew, or would probably ever believe, that Sarah was pretty sure she liked girls just as much as she liked boys.

Both of her parents liked Adam better.

Adam had been born when Sarah was eight, and she had felt like a footnote ever since. Supposedly this was common among older siblings who suddenly had to contend with a baby unwittingly taking up all the parents' time and attention. The problem with Adam was that it felt entirely witting. There was something uncanny about him and the way things always turned out in his favor. Sarah Young was eight years older than her younger brother and her parents had never taken her side on anything.

And Adam was a right terror, besides, always causing trouble with the Them (the worst name for a group) and getting into places he shouldn't. These days he'd been up in arms about the Spanish Inquisition of all things, and getting all the details dreadfully wrong.

Most younger siblings had to go through school in the shadow of their elders; Sarah had spent the last several years meeting teachers who knew her as "Adam Young's Older Sister.”

* * *

“I’ve got some questions,” Anathema said one evening, after a long day of not finding the Antichrist. 

Newt looked up with the expression of someone sitting for a test he hadn’t studied for. She rolled her eyes. “First, why’d you make me burn that damn book?”

“I didn’t _make_ you do anything,” Newt said. “At least, I don’t think I did. I didn’t think I was the sort who could make people do anything, let alone someone like you.”

He had a point. Some of the winds of righteous anger dropped out of Anathema’s sails. “Well it was your idea, wasn’t it?” she demanded. “What on _earth_ possessed you to suggest it!?”

Newt looked almost offended. “You were _this close_ to being able to live your life without thinking about what Agnes Nutter saw and didn’t see. You saved the world, there’s no sense you should live the rest of your life looking through every newspaper for phenomena, is there?”

Anathema huffed. That’s what she’d thought at the time. It had made sense. “But that’s the only life I know how to live,” she said. “I’m a descendent. I’m a _Device._ ”

“You’re not, though. You’re a person.”

“That’s my _last name,_ Newt.”

“Oh. Right.” Newt frowned. “The way I see it, Agnes spent her whole life looking towards the future. All your ancestors spent the lives in the past, looking backwards at what she’d written and trying to make sense of things that had already happened. You, Anathema, you’re the first one with a chance to live in the present.”

Anathema grimaced. “I don’t think I like it.”

Newt was about to suggest that maybe they could do something, possibly in the bedroom, that would make the present more enjoyable, but Anathema wasn't done.

“Listen.” She reached over to her radio and turned it on. Smooth jazz slipped like liquid out of the speakers and metaphorically puddled on the floor. It was very smooth jazz. She changed the station to the news, where a reporter spoke about an inexplicable power _success_ all across London, where everyone’s electricity was working so well their lights wouldn’t turn off and their blenders began whirring on their own. “What do you make of this?” she demanded.*

[*This was the work of a certain demon known as Crowley who, during a moment of drunken panic, had decided that the opposite of a power failure was both a hilarious concept and proper demonic activity. It certainly had upset a lot of people who had been trying to sleep, but no one was seriously harmed.]

“I didn’t touch anything electronic today, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“ _No._ I know that. Well, I don’t. Which is my point!” Her voice pitched wildly in desperation. “What if it’s important? What if there’s something we should be doing? Should we stay here? Evacuate? Does it even mean anything?”

Newt grabbed her hands. At some point they had begun shaking, and now he was holding them still. “Do you know what normal people do when things like this happen?” he asked.

Anathema shook her head.

“They listen to the news to find out what’s happening, and then they make their own choices,” Newt said. “Well, sometimes the newspeople say to do certain things, but even then it’s a choice whether to listen or not.”

“I used,” Anathema said, “to think I was good in a crisis. That might have all been Agnes.”

Newt had nothing to say to that.

* * *

The next day, in the mostly empty Young residence, there was a knock at the door. 

Sarah didn't hear it, because she was upstairs, painting again. This new day felt hopeful, so she'd begun work on something lighter than the skull-moon. Right now it looked like a few criss-crossing lines and faint blotches, but she hoped it would become an arial view of a town, any town. Not Tadfield.

The knock came again, louder, and then there was some rather frantic bell-ringing.

Sarah heard that. She waited another thirty seconds in case anyone else was home, but they weren't, and the person at the door didn't go away. So she sighed and dropped her paintbrush in a mug of dirty water and went downstairs to open the door.

There was a girl standing on the stoop. A few years older than Sarah, maybe, but a complete stranger. Her long dark hair had purple streaks dyed in, and sharp green eyes watched her out of brown skin. She was wearing a long green coat with deep pockets, and there were crystals and odd symbols around her neck which Sarah didn’t think to take for witchcraft. As a semi-professional, Sarah approved of the color palette.

“Hullo,” she said. “Can I help you?” As a greeting, it seemed somehow lacking.

The girl’s mouth opened slightly. Her eyes flicked from Sarah’s face to the paint-stained shoulders of her smock, to something in the air just beside or behind Sarah’s head. “Ah,” she said. “Anathema Device.” She extended a hand.

“Sarah Young,” Sarah said, taking it. Anathema’s skin was warm, her hands inkstained and rough. She was odd, Sarah thought. In the sort of way her father would hate.

Sarah liked her at once.

* * *

Anathema Device had spent her entire life learning witchcraft, deciphering prophecies, and preparing for the world to end with a sort of grim-jawed optimism that kept her from despair. Not one of those things had given her any indication that girls, and this girl in particular, could be so captivating.

Sarah Young, with her storm-grey eyes and her painter’s smock, tight around broad shoulders. With her cropped brown hair and the aura around her head, deep blue like the night sky, frayed at the edges but vast and quiet. Sarah Young was beautiful.

I wonder, Anathema thought, if this is what it’s like, being gay.

 _Ye Dumbe-aff,_ Agnes laughed in her head.

* * *

When it seemed clear Anathema was not about to explain anything, Sarah cleared her throat. “Are you new in town?”

Anathema drew her hand back quickly and shoved it in one of her coat pockets. “Sort of. I’ve been here a few weeks but I haven’t ventured out much. I’m the one renting Jasmine Cottage.”

“Oh, that’s you! I’ve heard people say you were an artist*.” Sarah’s chest felt light. Despite the scenery, Lower Tadfield was not what anyone would call a hotbed of artistic achievement. She’d love to have a friend with similar interests.

[*Sarah had actually heard both sets of rumors: that the woman in Jasmine Cottage was an artist, and that she was a witch. She dismissed the second out of a mixture of rationality and hope.]

“Er. That’s what I’ve been telling people, I suppose. I’m really more of an occultist.” Anathema bit her lip. “And I need a favor.”

Sarah found she was holding her breath.

“Do you know where I can find Adam?”

And there it went. The friend, the vague notions of artistic companionship, everything. Sarah could probably move to America and everyone would still know Adam first. “He’s not home,” she said.

“Oh dear.” Anathema was back to staring at a point just over Sarah’s shoulder. Right past her.

“He’s hardly ever home, and no, I don’t know where he is. Look around the fields and such, I’m sure you’ll find him.”

“I’ve tried that—” Anathema began, but Sarah closed the door before she could finish.

* * *

Perhaps it was for the best. As soon as she’d mentioned Adam, Sarah’s aura had recoiled and shrunk into itself. Anathema supposed that might be the consequence of living in the same house as the boy who'd nearly destroyed the world, whether Sarah realized it or not.

Or perhaps it was for the worst, because now Anathema was thinking about how much she'd like Sarah to open that door and do... something. Offer to help track down Adam, perhaps. Confirm, somehow, that Anathema wasn't just imagining a gay awakening. Bisexual awakening? Queer awakening, certainly, as long as it was truly an awakening at all. It wasn't as though Anathema had been unaware of the variety of human sexuality before— she'd met quite a lot of witches, after all— she'd just never bothered to consider it for herself. Agnes had seen her sleeping with one man and that had been good enough for her.

Agnes probably confirmed the awakening in the second volume. That was the only way to be sure.

Anathema almost rapped at the door again, but no. She needed a plan. She needed the book, a long think, and perhaps a plate of biscuits, and then she could try her chances again with Sarah Young.

The rest of the day brought her no closer to finding Adam. None of her traditional witchcraft worked, probably because he was literally the Antichrist. Neither did hapless wandering through the areas he might be. Tired and sullen, she returned to Jasmine cottage, only to find Newt shoving his few possessions into a cardboard box.

“You’re leaving?”

“Well,” Newt said. He shuffled awkwardly. “We had a fight. Means it’s over, doesn’t it?” He had always suspected he’d been living on borrowed time.

Anathema huffed. “I have no idea what it means. Either we’re over, or I tell you you’re being stupid and you fall in my arms. Both options were suitably dramatic for Anathema to have seen them in novels and movies. “But I’ve got no idea which one.”

“Okay.” Newt blinked at her. “I wouldn’t mind that second one. Are you really going to—?”

“ _I don’t know,_ ” Anathema snapped. “I would’ve known if I had Agnes around to tell me.”

“She didn’t tell you everything, though, did she?” Newt made one last valiant attempt to swing her to his side. “Most of the decisions you were making on your own anyway, or you based on a prophecy you got wrong.”

“But I always had a direction! And I knew that none of it was going to matter, not after the world ended!”

“Fine, then.” Newt crossed his eyes. “Assuming the world was going to end in another three years, what would you want?”

Anathema was silent.

“Anathema.”

“I don’t know.”

Newt sighed. “I want to move past the apocalypse,” he said. “At least for now, I can’t keep rehashing it all. I guess I’m leaving.” He picked up a box. The bottom fell out.

“Leave tomorrow,” she offered. “Let’s not end on bad terms, at least. Besides, those roads are dangerous. People drive without their lights on all the time.”

* * *

“Someone was looking for you,” Sarah said that evening, as she and Adam cleared plates off the table. Adam was rushing it as usual, and would have broken at least a glass if not for his unfathomable good luck. 

“I was out with the Them all day,” Adam said. “Don’t ‘spect it was anything important.”

“Well I ‘ _spect_ she thought it was. Who was she?”

“She?” Adam wrinkled his nose. “What, the witch?”

“Don’t be cruel. She said she was an artist.”

“Nah, she’s a proper witch.” Adam slid a plate across the counter. It skittered along the edge and then dropped into the sink without so much as a clatter. “Has witch magazines an’ goes looking for lay-lines and such. Why’d she want me?”

Sarah bristled. It wasn’t even that those things sounded so terrible (though what a “witch magazine” entailed was beyond her), it was that Adam knew them first. “She said she wanted a favor,” she answered coldly. “I didn’t ask what. You can be your own secretary.”

To her surprise, Adam’s face grew dark. “I’m not doing favors,” he said. For a moment he looked grim and old and terrifying. Then she blinked and he was tossing spoons into glasses without missing one. “Don’t worry,” he said lightly. “She’ll have forgotten all about it by now, I’d imagine. Can you finish up? I’ve gotta go feed Dog.”

 _No,_ Sarah almost said, but the word got lost between her brain and her mouth, and she didn’t remember it until Adam had run out the door, Dog jumping at his heels.

* * *

“So what’s the plan for tomorrow, then?” Newt asked, that night. They were sleeping on opposite sides of Anathema’s bed, because there was only one bed. “Back to looking for Adam?” 

Anathema blinked at her pink pillowcase and tried to think of any reason she should be searching for Adam. She had been, certainly, but it all seemed rather pointless now. “He can’t help me,” she said slowly. “I think I’ll try someone else.”

* * *

Sarah put her unfinished street map painting aside and fitted a new canvas onto her easel. Then she sat down with a sketchbook because, while she had been known to jump in with pencils and then paints and hope for the best, the idea she was working through was too vague and too important not to plan out. Her first sketch was a face, Anathema’s, as well as she could remember. But that was no good, because faces were impossible. Sarah avoided portraiture if she could possibly help it. Landscapes were more her speed. Landscapes didn’t care who you were related to, and they certainly didn’t require you to draw noses.

But Anathema, even the vague artistic notion of Anathema, was not a landscape. She was too precise for that. Besides, it felt a bit creepy painting someone she’d only spoken to once and then slammed the door on.

So Sarah decided to go even more precise. To zoom in until the meaning was there and the context wasn’t. Anathema had worn some type of crystal around her neck, hadn’t she? Deep green in a gold setting, with an irregular cut, as though it’d been made for magic, not jewelry.*

[*Actually it had been made as part of a jewelry line that were designed to look magical but lacked any supernatural significance whatsoever. Except for the green quartz pendant, that is, which had done something right and taken off among actual witches. They found it especially useful for focusing divination spells and convincing strangers of their occult-ness. Anathema wore it for both reasons.]

After half a dozen frustrating sketches from different angles and three completely scribbled out attempts, Sarah wrote fifteen minutes of notes that went in circles about whether or not Anathema was an artist, a witch, both, or neither. Then she drew another three sketches from angles she liked even less than the first ones, and thought through three-quarters of an imaginary conversation with Adam where he explained how he knew Anathema and offered to introduce them properly. Then Sarah went to bed. That’s how the artistic process worked.

Before she fell asleep, she’d imagined seven-fifths of an imaginary conversation with Anathema, where she learned that Anathema was both witch and artist and had been using Adam as an excuse to meet Sarah. Then she imagined two-thirds of a different one where Anathema denied all that and chided Sarah for being unrealistic. For some reason, that Anathema sounded particularly like Mr. Young.

* * *

The next morning didn’t so much dawn as go from black to grey to slightly lighter grey. Rain fell steadily, a warm summer rain. The sort that made you want to step out and splash in puddles. It was not ideal for moving, but Newt said he’d better go anyway. It wasn’t as though Dick Turpin would be in any danger from the elements.

“I’ll probably be at Shadwell’s,” Newt said for the third time. “You know, in case you want to find me.” He was damp from running back and forth to the car an unnecessary number of times.

“I’ll probably be here,” Anathema replied. She was flipping through a book on divination, because her plans for the day consisted of heavy witchcraft. She wasn’t sure what she felt about Newt leaving. He seemed to think it was very final. For Anathema, as long as the world existed, nothing seemed very final.

“Well, I’m off then.”

Anathema gave him a narrow smile and listened as he started his car and drove off. The cottage was silent except for the whir of a small fan, the sound of rain on the roof, and Anathema scrawling notes and turning pages. It was something of a relief.

At least until she heard another engine rumble past the cottage.

* * *

If anyone asked, it was entirely a coincidence that Sarah Young drove by Jasmine Cottage on her way to work. She had a part-time job as a secretary in an office building the next town over, which was nowhere near the cottage. Her car, which she’d acquired at university, was a mustard yellow Volkswagen Beetle with a dented left bumper. Mr. Young disapproved of it, which was expected, but also made it better. Today it had been recruited only to arrive at work as usual, and it meant nothing that Sarah had taken the scenic route. It meant less that she was now slowing as she passed the cottage, peering out the rain-splattered windows in case Anathema was around.

It did not usually rain in Lower Tadfield at this time of year. In fact, the drought warnings had been getting more and more severe the last few weeks. Even Adam had started being concerned when Mr. Young had grumbled about it at dinner.

There was a light on inside the cottage, and a very new looking bicycle leaned against the wall, alarmingly exposed to the elements. Sarah could practically see rust forming on the frame.

The front door opened. Anathema peered out. “Hello?” she called. “Can I help you with something?”

Sarah nearly drove away on the spot. Instead she cracked open the window and called back “it’s Sarah Young! I think you might want to pull your bicycle out of the rain!”

Anathema looked at Sarah, and then looked at the bike. “It’s alright!” she yelled. “It’s not really my bike, I don’t think, and I’m running experiments to see how protected it is!”

“It doesn’t look very protected to me!”

“I mean it’s been touched by an angel,” Anathema explained. She leaned forward and water dripped in her eyes. “I’m not sure anything can hurt it!”

Sarah laughed. “I didn’t think occultists had much to do with angels!”

“Desperate times!” Anathema wiped water off her face. “What’re you doing here anyway? Do you want to come in?”

Sarah did, in fact, want to visit with Anathema, but the rain was getting stronger and she’d be late if she didn’t start driving again soon. Besides, Anathema would probably just ask about Adam again, and Sarah would spend the rest of the day disappointed. “I can’t,” she said. “I’ve got work.”

“Oh, alright.” Anathema waved. Sarah rolled up her window as Anathema said something else, and didn’t roll it down again to ask her to repeat. She drove off with a splatter of mud. _A bike touched by an angel,_ she thought. _That’s a new one._

* * *

Anathema spent the rest of the day working on her spell. Her hands were covered in ink and chalk and blood, and her knees ached from chalking complicated symbols on the floor. Her house was pungent with incense, which didn’t do anything mystical but smelled nice and helped her concentrate.

Just as the sun was disappearing below the horizon, a tiny piece of information slipped into her head, cold like it had come out of the rain. She turned it over in her mind. It was an address.

“Well fuck,” she said.


	2. Part 2

The weather the next day was nice, almost aggressively so, as though it had tolerated one day of rain and decided that was quite enough of _that,_ thank you very much. All that was left was a thick layer of mud and the scent of the earth heavy in the air. If there had been a rainbow, and it would have seemed wrong if there wasn’t, Sarah had missed it. That was a shame.

Sarah was pulling out papers; brochures to art galleries she should inquire about, photographs of paintings she needed to add to her portfolio, descriptions of her pieces and letters of introduction. All the more tedious trappings of being a professional artist. She was holed up in her room because her mother was home, and probably deep-cleaning the refrigerator. Just once Sarah would like to see Adam get roped into helping with the terrible chores.

There was a knock at the door, and then a ring of the bell.

Sarah dropped her papers on the bed. The window in her room looked on the front yard but not the front door. Therefore she couldn’t see the knocker, but she could see a familiar bicycle leaning against the gate. Excitement and anger flared in her chest.

“I’ll answer it!” she called to the kitchen, and bolted for the door.

Anathema was standing on the stoop, same coat, same jewelry, and a graphic-print t-shirt that read _It’s not magic, just common sense._ “Hey.”

"Adam's not home," Sarah said by way of greeting. "He never is these days.”

Anathema bit her lip. “Okay,” she said, puzzled. Then, “I’m not looking for Adam.”

“Of course you are,” Sarah blurted.

“Can he drive?” Anathema said.

“He’s eleven.”

“Exactly.”

Sarah stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. “You were looking for him two days ago, and he didn’t say anything about you finding him.” It wasn’t proof, but Adam liked to talk.

Anathema opened her mouth, frowned, and closed it. She shook her head and the purple in her hair swished around her face. “That’s not important,” she said. “I need to get to London and my friend with a car has gone off.”

It was quite a favor, but to Anathema’s credit, Adam would definitely _not_ be in London. Anathema shifted from foot to foot as Sarah looked her over. The mud on her boots clumped onto the stoop. “What’s in London?” Sarah asked finally.

“A demon,” Anathema said.

“First angels and now—”

“I need to see someone about a book,” Anathema said quickly. “I’ll explain on the way, but I’ve got an address and no way to get there.”

“Not even on your flying bicycle?”

Anathema turned to look. The bicycle was sitting on the ground. “I don’t think it actually does that,” she said, but didn’t sound convinced. “But I’ll have you know it _didn’t_ rust.”

Sarah laughed. “Yeah, sure.” She weighed her options. Staying home would be safe and disappointing. Leaving would be risky and thrilling and, desperate times or not, Anathema had chosen her. She grinned. “We’ll be back here by tonight, won’t we?”

* * *

Anathema had not expected that to work. She felt rather smug that it had. 

Sarah drove with her multicolored hands loosely around the steering wheel, giving Anathema sideways glances whenever she took her eyes off the road. Possibly she was mulling over what Anathema had said.

Most people didn’t really believe in witchcraft or demons or prophecies, or rather, they believed that they were things that might really happen, but always happened to someone else. Anathema had learned to be Nice and Accurate, and so she had told Sarah that she had burned a book, and needed to see a demon in London about getting it back. “It’s a book written by my ancestor, a witch named Agnes Nutter,” Anathema had explained. “She was writing about the future.”

* * *

Sarah, as people were wont to do, rationalized it all. Anathema had lost an heirloom and wanted it replaced. The only existing copy was held by some shady book dealer. “We’re not in any danger from this demon, are we?” she asked.

“Nah,” Anathema said. “I’ve got protective sigils. And a knife. And I think he’s mostly harmless.”

Anathema, Sarah decided, had an excellent sense of humor. She could use more of that. Her boyfriend of two years ago had been funny and adventurous and they’d planned to travel the world together. They’d checked off England, Spain, and Scotland before they ran out of money and realized that, without new and exciting locales, they were rather boring people who just so happened to be fantastic at travel itineraries. Anathema was not a boring person. And she was terrible at travel.

They had to stop at the cottage to grab her wallet, and Sarah raided her cupboards for snacks and found mostly granola. She had an address and no directions, and her only map of the area was covered in thick black lines that swirled and centered on Lower Tadfield. Most of the important road names and junction were entirely obscured.

“You’re not prepared for a day trip at all,” Sarah said as they pulled out.

“I would be if I knew what to prepare for,” Anathema huffed. “Things usually turn out all right.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Sarah said.

* * *

“Here we go,” Sarah said out of the blue. “We’re officially out of Lower Tadfield.”

Anathema looked out the window. There were no signs, just countryside and trees, but the more she looked the more she could sense it; in the color of the grass and the sharpness of the air.

“My favorite point on this road,” Sarah said. “Everything gets a little more real. Sometimes Tadfield is like living in a bubble, you know? Like the whole world might pass you by if you let it.”

“It’s a weird town,” Anathema agreed.

“I’m getting out of there, soon as I can,” Sarah said. “Back to university, and I’ll set up in a city somewhere. Look, the roads get bad right away, the trees more gnarled, it’s like an entirely different world.”

“It feels loved,” Anathema said. “That’s what I get from Tadfield anyway. Someone—” and it was only speculation, really, but she didn’t say who, “really loves it.”

Sarah scoffed. “Someone, maybe, but not me. I like this bit right here. A little wild, a little off. People come to paint the scenery of Tadfield, and it’s gorgeous, sure. That’s where I started. But out here things have teeth and personality.” She shook her head. “Maybe it’s just ‘cause it’s my home. I dunno.”

“Homes are odd places,” Anathema said. “You can’t go two steps in mine without tripping over some piece of Device history. We’ve got a few actual Devices cremated and stored on shelves, because they wanted to see how things turned out.”

“Not really.”

“Honest.” She found herself thinking about Newt all of a sudden. “My family likes living in the past and in the future more than they like living in the present.”

“My parents live in the past,” Sarah said, nodding. “The good old days. Back before people had lives, apparently.”

“Maybe the Youngs didn’t have lives. The Devices got into all sorts of trouble.” Anathema spent the next ten miles regaling Sarah with tales of intrigue. Roland Device, who had infiltrated the government to match top-secret cover-ups to certain prophecies. Henrietta Device who’d run away from her family only to have a vital epiphany while exploring the south pole. Lucretia Device who had caused a scandal by fooling a pastor and marrying a woman, and then made people feel bad about being upset by joining a volunteer firefighting group and saving lives.

Sarah perked up at that last story. “Lucretia sounds like quite a woman,” she said carefully.

“I wish I’d gotten to meet her,” Anathema said.

The silence was heavy with two young women keeping their thoughts and hopes to themselves. _She couldn’t be,_ Anathema thought. She watched Sarah’s face as she focused on the road, the thoughtful crease of her eyebrows.

“So what makes you different?” Sarah finally asked. “Why’d you leave the family burial grounds for Lower Tadfield?” They were questions no one had ever thought to ask.

Anathema ran her hands through her hair. “I thought the world was going to end,” she said honestly. “Then it didn’t.”

“That led you to Tadfield?”

Anathema almost blamed Agnes for sending her there, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Sarah deserved accuracy. “I just wanted to understand it all,” she said.

“And do you?”

“No.” Anathema gave a dry chuckle. “I understand less then when I started. Without this book we’re going to fetch… What is there to be besides a descendent?”

“Resplendent,” Sarah suggested, only half-serious. “Ascendent. Phosphorescent.”

Anathema shook her head. There didn’t seem to be a point to any of that. How did one move on from the Apocalypse? “I just want answers,” she said.

“All right, then,” Sarah said. “So what’s today’s question?”

Anathema went with the easy answer. “Will the demon even be home when we get there?”

* * *

By the time they were close enough to London and Sarah had to focus all her attention on the traffic, Anathema had explained that the markings on the map were lay-lines around Lower Tadfield, and given Sarah permission to paint her necklace, and had touched her shoulder four times, probably on accident.*

[*They weren’t.]

Sarah had also come to a conclusion. Anathema _was_ a landscape after all. Not a forest or a field of the sort Sarah often painted. You couldn’t flush birds out of her hair or admire the pastoral quality of her chin; she was too precise for much foliage. No, she was a cliff-face. Accurate and straightforward, yes, but with unexpected angles and crevasses that kept you always the tiniest bit uncertain what she meant by them. She didn’t just encourage you to look and feel peaceful, she encouraged you to climb.

She almost said something about it. Then Anathema pointed to a rather swanky building and said, “we’re here.”

* * *

Crowley answered the door to his apartment, obnoxiously on the top floor of a very tall building, with a glare that quickly turned into a look of uncertainty. “You’re the witch,” he said. He was wearing sunglasses even though he was indoors, and what seemed to be an expensive black suit. Maybe it was to counter the sparse, aesthetic white of his apartment.

“Anathema Device. Professional apocalypse stopper and descendant.” She held out a hand to shake.

“Sarah Young,” Sarah said, extending her own.

Crowley did not shake either hand. “Young as in—”

“She drove me here from Lower Tadfield,” Anathema said. “I’ve done something very stupid, and I’d like some help undoing it. Occult help, preferably.”

Crowley looked rattled. He stepped nervously away from them both. “I don’t help people,” he said, affronted. “How did you get this address, anyway? The phone books invariably get it wrong.” This was, Anathema gathered, on purpose.

“Witchcraft. More reliable than phone books.” Anathema brushed inside. In her head, Agnes Nutter said, _and thee fall walk into the ferpentf denne, Anathema, and thee fall never returne, becaufe thou art a bloody ftupid fool_. Anathema ignored her.

Crowley followed. “You can’t just walk in here,” he protested, despite Anathema having done just that.

“You and your angel friend stole my book of prophecy,” Anathema said. “And we saved the world together. Well, we were both there at least. The least you can do is hear me out.” She sat down on the sofa. Sarah hovered by the doorway. Her eyes were wide as though, despite all Anathema’s warnings, she still hadn’t believed the truth of the situation. Nothing to be done for that now.

Crowley stood with his arms crossed about halfway between them. He looked at his watch. It was a very expensive watch. “Two minutes,” he said. “After that there will be consequences.”

“What sort of consequences?” Sarah asked.

Crowley gave her a look that clearly said _you shut up, I’ve still got two minutes to think of them._ Sarah closed her mouth abruptly.

Anathema cleared her throat. “Agnes Nutter wrote a second book of prophecy,” she said. “It was delivered to me the day after we all got back from the airfield.”

Crowley’s mouth fell open. “There’s another one?”

“There was,” Anathema said. “Newt and I burnt it.”

“You what?”

“It was a bad idea.”

Crowley ran a hand through his hair, which succeeded in not mussing it up at all. “Well?” he asked. “How long did she give us before we’ve got to go through this whole thing again? And don’t say something like a hundred years as though that’s ages away. Blink of an eye, really.”

“I don’t know,” Anathema said. “I’m not sure what she was getting at. We never read it.”

“You never—!”

Crowley had a television in his flat. Flat screen. Able to play anything on any channel (or video recording) at the press of a button. It only worked for Crowley. Anyone else pressing the button would come quickly to the conclusion that the remote was out of batteries, and the rest of it had never been plugged in. At this moment, the television screen shattered.

All three turned to stare at it, open mouthed.

“Ngk,” said Crowley. He turned back to Anathema. “Witch, do you really mean to tell me that you had another book of prophecies and you _burned it without reading anything?_ No thought to who might need it?”

“Well that’s why I’ve come to you, isn’t it?” Anathema retorted. She was not about to let herself cry in the presence of a demon, and so reacted with anger. “I’ve got to get that book back, and I can’t do it alone.”

Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked unwell. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t just snap my fingers and—” he snapped his fingers. A pile of very fine ash appeared on his very white carpet. He winced.

“Is that it?” Anathema demanded, but she knew it was. It was the aura off that pile of ash. It felt like Agnes. Anathema thought she might be sick.

“Assuming I got the right book.” He looked at the pile and swallowed thickly.

 _And fo the ferpent lofef hif lunche in plain fight,_ Agnes said in Anathema’s head. _Withe ye foon to followe._

“Could you tell me where to find the angel?” Anathema asked weakly. She’d made a backup plan and wasn’t about to let it go to waste. “Maybe he could—”

Crowley’s face was a mixture of anger and terror. “ _Never,_ ” he said, his voice thick with a snakelike hiss, “tell Asssiraphale you sssset fire to a book. Essspecially not one like thisss.”

“Why not?” Sarah demanded. Her voice shook.

Crowley started and turned to face her. “Becausse,” he said. “He’s going to be upsset.”

* * *

After they both promised they wouldn’t breathe a word, Crowley conjured up a plastic bag and put the ashes in it. Anathema tucked the whole thing into her pocket. She felt just a little bit more secure having it, even if she had no one to take it to.

Sarah was silent as they left the flat and entered the elevator. Ten floors was a long way down. “That’s what we came to London for?” she asked. Her voice was very small, and she scrunched her key ring over and over in her hand.

“I thought he’d be more helpful,” Anathema said.

Nine floors.

“He was an actual demon.”

“Uh-huh.”

Eight.

“And there’s an angel somewhere that probably wants to kill you.”

“I wasn’t expecting that, either,” Anathema admitted. She hefted the plastic bag full of ash. “I’ll just have to recreate this, I suppose.” She no longer felt confident about her chances.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

“How the hell,” Sarah said deliberately, “does that demon know my brother?”

Four.

“What makes you—”

“Did you see how he looked at me?” Sarah burst out. “As soon as he heard my name, suddenly he was afraid of me. A _demon. Me._ And don’t try to tell me I was reading that wrong. This has been happening to me my entire life and I’m _sick_ of it. You were looking for Adam earlier, and yes, it does matter. _What has he done,_ and _how does that demon know my brother?_ ”

Two.

One.

“Ah,” Anathema said. “About that.”

* * *

Anathema had never learned to drive. There hadn’t seemed much point. If she had, she would have offered to take the wheel back to Lower Tadfield, because Sarah barely seemed to see the road. Her soft jaw was tight, her knuckles white around the wheel. Her aura appeared brittle and sharp, like it would cut Anathema if it had any physical presence. 

Anathema had done her best to explain. Her head was clearer now that she was away from Lower Tadfield— and away from Adam— but the bag of ash was heavy on her thigh, feeling for all the world like it would never change back. Besides, there was no good way to say “it turns out your younger brother is the Antichrist” and expect Sarah to take it well.

Anathema had padded the story with details;the _Nice and Accurate Prophecies,_ the horsepersons, the angel and the demon. The aliens and rains of fish and Tibetans made Sarah’s grey eyes flashed in what might have been recognition. Her memory may have been tampered with as well, but all those phenomena were still in there somewhere.

"You're not joking," Sarah said once she was done.

"I never was.”

“Does that mean my dad is Satan?”

“I don’t think so. Agnes talked about baby swapping at some point.”

“Hmm.”

And then Sarah had gone silent. That was miles ago. Anathema spun her rings around her fingers and stared out at the road.

They passed a gnarled tree that Anathema recognized from the first half of the journey. Sarah had said she wanted to paint it; said the bark looked like it meant something. Maybe it did, because that's when Sarah burst out, "you know, that almost makes sense." She gave a strangled laugh. "Would explain a lot, really. The Antichrist. _Hell._ "

Anathema nodded encouragingly.

"You know what else it'd explain," she said. "Why you wanted me to drive you. I thought it would be fun, maybe? Friends? I should have known better."

"Hold on," Anathema said. "That's what it was. And you had a car, but—"

Sarah twisted her hands around the steering wheel. "You brought me along to help you bully the demon! As leverage, cause if something happened to me _the Antichrist_ would be all up in arms, right? Sigils and bread knives, hah! _”_

Anathema’s mouth fell open. “Sarah.”

“You would do anything for that _stupid_ book.”

Anathema’s anger flared. “Don’t you dare.”

“There are enough people who want to tell you how to live your life. I’ve got a family full of them. It’s _stupid_ and you’re better off without it.”

“Without that book I am _nothing.”_

“And,” Sarah continued, pulling threads together without really listening, “I’m the only one with a car? Hah! Your boyfriend has one. Am I supposed to believe he wouldn’t drive you?”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Anathema snapped, and then, before she could think better of it, “I’m gay.”

The car swerved. Anathema clutched the door. She shouldn’t have said that. Not all of a sudden like this. If she’d only known _when_ she was bound to say it…

Finally Sarah responded. “No you’re not.”

“I probably am,” Anathema said. “Or something. It’s only occurred to me recently.”

Sarah shook her head. “You’re playing me again.”

“How would that be playing you?”

More silence. Sarah’s eyes were still glued to the road, but Anathema blinked and suddenly they were filled with tears, already tracking halfway down her cheeks.

“Woah,” Anathema said. “Sarah, okay, pull over.” The car shuddered at the sudden change in terrain, then stopped. Sarah continued to cry.

Anathema was not particularly good at comfort, but she did her best. Placed a hand on her shoulder that Sarah leaned into. Offered reassurances— things would be okay, really— that she couldn’t properly cite. Didn’t ask for an explanation when Sarah finally answered her question with a strangled “that’d be too convenient.”

They might not have been friends anymore, but at least they were warm bodies.

And to be fair, it was a lot to handle. Anathema cried too, hiding her face behind Sarah’s back as they held each other.

Anathema didn’t notice, until Sarah had cried herself out and turned back onto the road, that Agnes had nothing to add.

* * *

They arrived at Jasmine Cottage several hours later. Night was falling. The ride had been quiet but safe, and the only lasting casualties were the used tissues now littering Sarah’s car. Anathema insisted Sarah stay on the sofa while she made tea. It took her several minutes to notice a message light blinking on the phone. The last Anathema had checked, there was no way for that phone to save messages.

She pressed the only button, which was “play.”

 _“Uh, hi,”_ said the all-too-familiar recorded voice. _“You know what I said about Aziraphale being upset if he ever found out about the second book? Well he did. He wants to see it for himself. Nothing to worry about, probably. Just, ah, don’t set it on more fire than it was already, I suppose. Won’t be long.”_

The machine clicked off and then, job completed, stopped existing.

“Well shit,” said Anathema.

There was a knock at the door.

Anathema and Sarah each jumped about a foot in the air, but it was not an avenging angel on the doorstep. It was Newt.

“What are you doing here?” Anathema demanded.

“I think I’ve made a mistake,” Newt said. “Shadwell had his phone number. I thought, well, he’s an angel, maybe he could help you. I’m not sure that went so well.”

“No,” Anathema said. Her voice was weak. “No, I don’t think it did.”

“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.

Anathema’s mind was blank with fear. She leaned against the wall of the cottage so she wouldn’t fall over. _I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know._

“I’ll scare them off,” Sarah decided. She set her jaw firmly. Her aura pulsed with determination. “If the demon doesn’t trust me, the angel won’t either. I’ll get them to… go away, or something.”

It might have worked. It was certainly a better plan than anything Anathema had come up with. But instead she said “no.”

“What do you mean, _no?_ ”

Anathema took a breath. “I honestly did want to be friends. I didn’t mean to use you. If I make it out of this, I don’t want you mad at me.”

Sarah gaped.

“Crowley said it was probably nothing to worry about," Anathema said, not meaning it. “Go.”

* * *

It was too much. Sarah went. The secrets of the universe pulsed through her body, and that made her very powerful indeed. Working on instinct only, she left her car at the cottage and ran down the muddy road. With every squelch of her foot in the mud she thought about going back, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Realizations pounded repetitions in her head. _Angel coming, demon coming, Anathema’s gay, Adam’s been magically screwing me over THIS WHOLE TIME._

It wasn’t until she was heading up the drive, breath coming short as she entered the warm glow of the porch light, that she realized she’d been going home. She did not take off her shoes or even wipe them on the mat, but instead squelched her way upstairs.

The door to Adam’s room, decorated by a painstakingly scrawled _Keep Out_ sign, was closed but not locked. Sarah pushed it open.

* * *

A black Bentley, fully intact but not quite _right,_ drove into Lower Tadfield. In the driver’s seat was a demon who felt that coming back to this town at all, let alone two weeks after the Apocalypse had almost happened, was a terrible idea. Still, he was there because Aziraphale had asked him to be. Also, he had a car.

On the passenger side was an angel who hadn’t quite come to terms with his collection of rare books being burned up and replaced with different rare books. He folded his smooth, brown, well-manicured hands in his lap, then unfolded them, then folded them a different way. If there was any chance… a second volume of Agnes Nutter’s work that had been unknown for centuries would be the crowning achievement of any collector… Well, he had to see it for himself, even if there was, as Crowley assured him, nothing left.

“Jasmine Cottage,” Crowley said to himself. “Down this way.” He rested a hand on Aziraphale’s arm.

* * *

“You’re not allowed in here,” said Adam. He sounded surprised, and Sarah realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in his room. She didn’t recognize half the mess on the floor, and there were so many magazines with spaceships and Elvis on the covers.

“You need to help Anathema,” Sarah said.

“No I don’t.” Adam said. He was lying on his stomach on the bed, a piece of paper and a pencil in front of him. The comforter shouldn’t have been firm enough for him to write without stabbing holes in the paper, but he was doing it anyway. “I told you, she doesn’t _really_ want to see me.”

Sarah felt a slight breeze, as though the world had displaced a little air when it shifted. She held her ground. “Don’t you dare, you little brat.”

“Come on,” Adam said. “I’m busy. Lea’me alone.”

The breeze came again, but it didn’t take. “No,” said Sarah.

Adam wrinkled his nose. “You’d better.”

“I know what you are,” Sarah said. “And I don’t care.”

“What do you mean, what I am?”

Sarah fixed him with a Look.

Adam said, “oh.”

Sarah said, “Anathema just needs a book fixed. That’s all. And you owe me.”

“No I don’t.”

“You _owe me,_ ” Sarah repeated, “for cheating on every damned coin toss and guessing game your entire life. Besides,” she continued. “I can tell your friends that the drought was your fault. Dad might not believe me, but they will.”

* * *

Anathema was watching out the window when the Bentley pulled up, right behind Sarah’s Beetle. The headlights were on this time; otherwise she might not have seen the car or the two figures that stepped out.

“That’s a nice car,” Newt said, somewhat ruining the drama of the moment. “A real classic.”

“Hush,” said Anathema. She opened the door before either of approaching figures could knock. It felt good to be able to do that. Like she was, again, a little bit ahead of the times.

“Come in,” she said, with a note of doom in her voice.

“Don’t mind if we do,” said Crowley. He was holding onto Aziraphale's arm, which seemed only right. His face was pinched and worried, but he looked more at ease by Aziraphale’s side than he had in a flat by himself.

Anathema hadn’t remembered much about Aziraphale from the airfield, and looking at him now she could see why. His appearance; old green sweater pulled over a round belly, thick glasses over soft, dark skin, seemed almost curated to get its owner dismissed as a harmless eccentric. Then he looked into Anathema’s face and she got the sense of something gold and fiery and very, very dangerous.*

[*It was not his aura. Aziraphale and Crowley had auras which looked surprisingly normal, that is to say human, only quite a bit older.]

“Young lady," Aziraphale said. "A young man in the Witchfinder Army led me to believe that Agnes Nutter had written a second book of prophecy?”

“Er,” said Newt. Crowley gave him a sharp look.

"Yeah," said Anathema. She pulled out the plastic bag filled with ash. "Mistakes were made." She spread her feet on the floor and prepared to be smote.

Aziraphale made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and took the bag in reverent hands. "Oh dear," he said. "Oh dear."

Crowley watched the bag as though it foretold his own demise, which it very possibly had.

"Is there anything you can do?" Anathema asked cautiously. This was not quite the reaction she'd expected.

With shaky hands, Aziraphale handed it over to Crowley, who clearly did not want to hold it. "You're quite sure you can’t—?"

"Sorry, Angel."

"Ah."

Anathema swallowed down waves of guilt.

Aziraphale fixed her with a sharp look. "And just how," he said, "did it come to resurface and be burnt in the first place?"

Anathema opened her mouth to give a Nice and Accurate answer. The door opened.

Immediately the cottage got warmer and brighter, and everyone stepped back as a surly eleven year old boy slouched inside. He was followed by his older sister, watching him with her arms crossed, compelling the Antichrist to behave, in the way only an eldest sibling can.

"Ngk," said Crowley, and very nearly dropped the bag.

"Sarah," Anathema said.

"What're you all lookin' at me for?" Adam demanded unnecessarily.

"Where's the book?" Sarah said. "He's promised to fix it up."

Aziraphale took the bag from Crowley and wordlessly extended it. Adam took it, unimpressed. "Is this all?" he said. "Seems a lot of fuss for something that's only gonna tell you boring stuff you already know."

"It's very important," said Anathema.

"You promised," said Sarah.

Aziraphale put his hand over Crowley's and squeezed.

Adam rolled his eyes. On the upswing, the book was a bag of ash. On the downswing, the bag of ash was a book. A very old book, with familiar type on the front. Anathema and Aziraphale shot forward, eyes gleaming. Adam held it out of their reach. "You gotta promise this is the last favor," he said. "I didn't save the world jus' so I could go around doing favors for everybody, an' I don't want this to set a president."

"Promise," said Anathema, as Aziraphale said, "of course, of course."

Sarah and Crowley shrugged.

"Good." Adam tossed the book into the air. As everyone grabbed for it, he slipped past Sarah and out the door, running free at last.

To no one’s surprise, Aziraphale won the scuffle, and retreated to the side of the room clutching the book to his chest. Anathema’s fingers itched to grab for it, so she grabbed onto Sarah instead and demanded “let me see it.”

Aziraphale glared. “I’m not sure that’s such a wise idea.”

“It’s _my book._ ”

“You _burnt_ it.”

“I got it back,” Sarah said. “Why don’t we, ah, look at it now, before we decide who gets to keep it.” Anathema considered it a good sign that she’d made friends with a woman who was able to stand up to an angel.

Aziraphale seemed about to decline, but Crowley shrugged at him, and he relented. They spread the book on the kitchen table and clustered around the _Further Nice and Accurate Prophecies._

* * *

_Forewarde: dedicayted to thofe who have recovered thif book._

_i. When thif text be read, I will have been burned and burned again.  
Yef of courfe I faw that. Who do you take me for?_

_ii. To the ferpent:*  
This booke doth not speake of the End. There will be one, but I have yet to fee it. Blame the Witchfindere Armie for that one. I’m juft getting to the goode part._

[*“That’s me,” Crowley said. Anathema shushed him.]

 _iii. To the book collectore:  
_ _I’m glad to have met fuche a devoted fan. Tayke my advice and look to the future._

 _iv. To the Witchfinder:*    
_ _No harde feelingf, eh? There will be a place for you too. Try Thai food already, whatevere that if._

[*”That’s me,” Newt said. Aziraphale shushed him.]

 _v. To Anathema:    
_ _I don’t know the anfwer, Anathema. But I fufpect you alredie do._

 _vi. To Sarah:    
_ _Fhe was telling the truthe._

_xii. Af the followinge prophecies will show, it is an Exciteing Worlde that Is To Come._

* * *

Crowley sagged against Aziraphale’s side in relief. “It’s not soon,” he murmured. 

“Once again, it is ineffable,” Aziraphale said softly. “But no. Not soon.”

Anathema shook her head and read _“yef of courfe I faw that,_ ” over and over. It was okay, then. She had been supposed to burn the book. All of this was in accordance with the prophecies. She wasn’t sure why she’d ever doubted it.

Newt shuffled, feeling a bit of an odd wheel. Aziraphale was drawing gentle fingers up and down Crowley’s spine. Anathema was clutching Sarah’s hand. He wondered if an angel or a demon could arrange to have takeaway delivered to Lower Tadfield.

Sarah rolled around the phrase _she was telling the truth_ again and again in her mind. She’d already known it, sort of. Expected something different from Anathema and been proved right.

“It is ascendent,” she said suddenly. “That’s what you can be instead of a descendent, Anathema.”

Anathema’s lips quirked up in half a smile. “Ascendent?”

“It doesn’t matter what we’re descended from,” Sarah said. “We get to rise past that. Whether Agnes saw it or not.”

Anathema’s grin was dazzling. “Professional ascendents,” she said. “It’s got a ring to it.”

It had been a long day, and Sarah was just wrung out enough to be reckless. She leaned forward and kissed Anathema. Anathema kissed her back. It felt like flying.

* * *

In the aftermath of the aftermath, they kissed more. Sarah took Anathema to her room, and then Anathema took several of Sarah’s paintings to her cottage. The arial view of a town became an artist’s rendition of lay-lines. Anathema rested her chin on Sarah’s shoulder and offered critique, and this was the first of Sarah’s paintings to be accepted to a gallery.

Newt worked up the courage to ask Crowley for restaurant recommendations. He couldn’t afford any of them, but Crowley waved his hand and said he’d take care of it. The first Thai place he tried was delicious, and the register shorted out right when Newt was about to pay. “That wasn’t me,” Crowley admitted later. “I forgot. A job well done, though, I must say.”

It was decided Aziraphale would keep the book in his shop. “For safekeeping,” he said rather haughtily to Anathema. “Because he misses his collection,” Crowley explained privately to Sarah. The rarest book in the world didn’t make up for Aziraphale’s life’s work, but it was a start. Crowley deciding to more or less move in at the same time helped as well.

Anathema was invited to come and read it and make notes whenever she wanted, and at first this was an extensive, weekly trip (if only because Sarah would only drive her once a week). Slowly, the trips became less and less frequent, and then Anathema was gone for an entire month while she and Sarah went abroad.

It was not so much a flight upwards as a struggling climb up a sheer mountainside. Few ascents ever are. Still. A certain tiny cottage in Lower Tadfield looks especially picturesque from above.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear what you thought.
> 
> You can also find me on Dreamwidth as DwarvenBeardSpores, tumblr as dwarven-beard-spores, and Twitter as @BeardSpores.


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